いやあ、昨日のライブは楽しかったでんな。そらあ、自分の企画って好きなバンド呼んで一緒にライブやって打ち上げで飲んでんだから楽しくないわきゃあないでんな。そんでもってお客さんも満員入ってくれてるんだから最高でんな。ほんと、来てくれた皆々様、ありがとうございます。でんな。

I really enjoyed last night’s show. To be fair there was no reason for me not to enjoy it since we organized the gig and invited a famous band to support us! Also the venue was packed so it was a great night. Thanks you all for coming!!

まあ、ふざけるのは社長のMC（内職系）だけにして。。。（ちなみに昨日は帽子のポッチ部分でした）今回、僕らのお誘いに応えてくれたのは、ピーランダーZを通じて知り合った地上最強のガールズバンド、つしまみれでした。彼女らのライブはご存知の通り、マジすごいっす。特にベースのやよいちゃんのプレイは圧巻。で、しかもロック。もしかしたらイールショックの音楽性というか、姿勢がかなり近い気がする。つまりべた惚れ。お客さんもべた惚れ。すごい盛り上がりでした。

The band whom we invited was "Tsushimamire".  We were introduced to them a few months ago by Peelander-Z. Tsushimamire is one of the greatest girl bands I have ever seen. Especially the bassist, Yayoi is great! I think their attitude to music is quite similar to EES… probably. We love them, the crowd loved them, the show was fantastic.

そしてわしらです。トゥーメンは待ちが短くていいのう。そして今回は特筆すべきはシェルターのスタッフの意気込み！20周年のプレイベントとさせてもらってる今回の企画ですが、その意気込みが当日入ってるPAスタッフ布陣から感じさせてもらいました。いつもはメインPAやってる橋本さん（通称ちーち）がなんとアシスタントとしてステージ横についてくれ、シェルターのチーフエンジニアの三田さん（通称Tiger）との超贅沢な二人体制！その甲斐あってか、今回は抜群に音が良くて最高でした。ありがとう！５月もよろしくお願いします。

Then we played. I like it when there are only two bands on the bill because we do not have to wait around too long before playing. The venue for tonight’s show was "Shelter" in Shimokitazawa, it has become like a second home for us recently but this show was very special. The gig was part of their pre-celebration events for their 20^th anniversary. The staff seemed to be quite into our show and their 2 sound guys (actually ladies) were great so I think the sound was one of the best I have ever experienced!  The lighting crew were also great, thank you, Shelter! I hope we will have an equally good experience when we play our solo show on May 20th.

さあ、ニュースにあるようにライブアルバムのリリースがいよいよ決まりました。ここ数年暖めてきた企画がようやく日の目を見ます。ご期待下さいよう。さあこれからジャケットを作らなきゃ。アディオス・アミーゴ！

Finally, our live album will be released in May (sorry it will only be available in Japan). The album will include tracks recorded all over the world since 2002. Check it out! Now I have to make the cover!

all photos by saito mayumin

昨日は江東区のコミュニティFM、レインボーFMにお邪魔してきました。

Two days ago we visited a community FM radio station in Koto-ku, Tokyo as talk show guests in order to promote a show that we will play on March 13th @ Kameido Hardcore. The organizer is our friend Sudo.

これは3/13に亀戸ハードコアで行われるライブのプロモーションとして主催者の,、ほら、あの、Machine And The なんとか（Live Gigのページ参照）の須藤君がお誘いしてくれました。

僕らと須藤君に加えて対バンの狂うクルーのお二人も参加。やたらゲストが多いくせに、何故かレギュラーパーソナリティのハードコアオーナーの西脇さん、そしてメインパーソナリティのすぎはら美理さんが二人ともお休みというなんだかゆるーい番組でした。やたらジャイアンがすぎはら美理に会えなかったのが残念がってたなあ。理由は知ってる人だけ笑っとけ。

There were a lot of guests (EES 3, Sudo, and another band called Kuruu Crew  2) but the main two MCs were not there...I don't know why...

そして今日はちょっとおもしろいお仕事。twitterではちょっとつぶやいてたんですが、最近面白い依頼を受け、レコーディングをしたんですよ。先月復活した（多分すでに休業）スペースカンフーマンの片山君からの紹介で、こちらのコンピで「およげ、たいやきくん」のオケを録ってほしいとのこと。ってことは誰が歌うのってと、なんとこの人、ボビー・オロゴンさん。

Yesterday, Aki and I went to a recording studio to record some vocals. We got an offer from our friend's label called Bad News. They asked us to make the backing track for a famous kid's song "Oyoge, Taiyakikun" (it means ‘go swim, Taiyakikun’ (it is the sweets shaped fish.- I attached the photo.). The song will be sung by a famous comedian called Bobby Ologun. He is from Nigeria originally

このコンピのキャラクター「家族ん（かぞくん」の生首。

This character called "Kazokun"

森本社長がボビーに歌の指導。

Aki was teaching Bobby how to sing

歌えないボビーの為に急遽、森本社長がガイドで歌う。

Aki recorded a guide vocal for him.

そしてうまく入れないボビーの為に横について丁寧指導。

Aki went into the vocal booth with him (because he can’t sing properly!)

なかなかすごい歌がレコーディング出来ました。

Eventually we got a great vocal track! (you can imagine how bad it is!)

4/21発売らしいですよ。他にも色々面白そうな選曲になってますよ。皆さん聴いてみてねー。

The track will be released on a compilation album which will be released on April 21st. It will be a cd of kids songs, all sung by famous Japanese artists. Check it out if you are in Japan.

i've been to the gig of CJ Ramone 3 days ago.

Shonen Knife supported him, that's why i came to the show.

their show was great, especially the drummer, Etsuko (i missed her shot...) was really good. i saw them with my friend, he loves her and he left the venue after Knife finished.

i don't expect CJ Ramone's show, but his show was beyond my expectation. his vocal was good and of course he sung all Ramones songs, that's we loved !

but i heard in twitter, his bass guitar was stolen.

i hope it will be found.

we will organize the event in Osaka called "Osaka Rock Day".

we & Shonen Knife will play at Shinsaibashi Sun Hall, April 17th & 18th.

Let's go to Osaka !

we were back to Tokyo, and had a show in Shimokitazawa.

we played with my favorite band called Qomolangma Tomato.

they were amazing !

Aki seems also happy !

 

next day, we were going to up north to Sendai, Miyagi.

there is big snow the day before yesterday, so we dicided to detour avoinding mountain side. so we took 6 hours drive for 350km...

we have played in Sendai not so often but we got great night !

local promoter will try to get us to Sendai again in this summer.

hopefully we will make it !

We spent 9 hours driving from Osaka to Tokyo due to heavy snow. (Sounds familiar, the first time I went to Japan EES gave me a lift to Osaka & it took us four hours to get out of Tokyo!!)

Because of this we missed our sound check but we still played a great show.

Today's  headliner was SAVIOURS  from Oakland USA they were brilliant!

We had a special guest tonight.

Genelay came from Hong Kong! (she runs the official Myspace & facebook pages)

She came all the way from Hong Kong just for our show!!

Thank you very much !!

Today, we played in Osaka with our friend's band "Rasen"(it means "spiral").

European fans may remember that we had a Japanese stand in drummer a couple of years ago.

His name is Kosho, Rasen is his band.

He said "I want to meet Wayne !".

アイドルパンチ企画　"VIOLENT POP vol.38"@十三ファンダンゴ

別名「裸祭り」、やってきました。その名の通り、何となく脱いでるバンド、もしくは半裸の人がステージ上がる率が異様に高い今回の企画。年末のファンダンゴナイトの打ち上げにいてた俺らとクリトリック・リスがその場で出演が決定というユルいイベント。さすがドルパン。さすがファンダンゴ。懐が深い。愛情が深い。ジャイアンは毛深い。

Last Saturday we played an event called "VIOLENT POP vol.38" organized by our friends Idol Punch at Fandango in Osaka. We played with them a month ago & they offered us this gig when we went drinking with them after the show.

トップバッターはパーフェクトミュージック会長（？）、ウチ君率いるLARGE 400。イールショックとはずいぶん古い付き合いだが、対バンは実に７～８年振りじゃないか？あの頃とはずいぶん様子が違い、２ドラム、パーカッション、キーボードまで（うち３人はドルパンとメンバーも被ってる）いる。音はずいぶんポストロック？（だいたい「ロック後」ってどういう意味だ？）化してる。洗練？おしゃれ？でもウチ君自身は変わらず。聞いたら曲は昔の曲をそのままやってるらしい。アレンジってすごいね。電子レンジもすごいけど。

The first band on were LARGE 400. They are also old friends of ours but they have changed completely since we last saw them. They now have two drummers, percussion & keyboards (sounds awful…ed!). Their sound has gone from being junkcore to post rock (I’m not sure what either of those is…ed, and since Kazuto’s version of this says “what is post R N R” I’m not sure that he is either…it is difficult to keep up at our time of life). Maybe their music has matured (?) but the vocalist was still totally screaming. Apparently all songs are old songs, just re-arranged. Good work.

２番目は最近、大阪でやる時は常に一緒のクリトリック・リス。Mixiの書き込みで書いてあったけど、今日は皆、椅子に座ったままでディナーショーのようにクリトリック・リスを堪能。なんかいつもと違って、神々しい感じ。神だって書かれたよ。良かったね。

Next up was Kuritoriku Risu. We have played with him a lot recently when we have played in Osaka but this show was a bit different. The audience sat in chairs and watched him as if at a Dinner Show…you know like a swing concert, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, that kinda thing. It showed me another side of him. Somebody said he is god. I’m not sure…maybe!

そしてわしら、EES。この日もライブ・レコーディングしてるもんだから気合い入ってたよ。アクション少なめだったけど。かなり演奏良さげだったから何曲かこの日のテイクが入るでしょう。俺、結構間違えたけど。。。すんません。。。

And then it was us. I think we played quite well because we were recording again. Not too much over acting, just playing the songs. I think some of what we recorded last night will end up on the live album although I still made some mistakes (as always!)... sorry Aki & Gian...

そして大御所、アイドルパンチ。裸祭りの頭領、ラコスバーガー、オーナーのラッコ率いる裸集団。ラッコは脱がないけど。でもこのバンドの本当の目玉はあの前説の子じゃないだろうか。名前知らないけど。ずっとドルパンをあの方々と称し、全く無反応のお客（お約束）に向かっていく姿は涙誘うものがありましたぞ。そして演奏中も甲斐甲斐しく、マイクを直したり、森進一並みにノッてる姿はもう目が離せませんでした。リスペクト。

Finally, the headline act and host, Idol Punch.  They also have naked guys in the band... and the leader, Racco is the owner of famous burger shop called "Raccos Burger"...they are funny, junk (trash?) core but they played very tight and are quite poppy. I dig them deeply! (no, of course he didn’t really say that, I’m typing this up while listening to The Cramps!)

しかし今日は全く写真を撮るの忘れちゃった。。。めんご、めんご。youtubeでどうぞ。

I forgot to take a picture of LARGE 400 & Kuritoriku Risu... sorry about that..(I could not find a You Tube link for either of those two but I did find Idol Punch)

この日の打ち上げでは去年に引き続き、今年4/17、18に行われる大阪ロックデイ（先走りで発表しちゃうぞ）にアイドルパンチとラコスバーガー出店が決定！勿論、イールショックも出ますぞ。今から皆、予定空けておくように。遠方からのお客求む。当方健康な中年男性３人組、レイジ（ドイツの）、エントゥームド等好む。完全プロ指向。

I am on the staff of a local event called "OSAKA ROCK DAY". It has not been officially announced yet but I don’t care…I can tell you that Idol Punch will be playing (why not EES????...ed **yes, we will be playing too !!!) and Racco’s Burger will have a stall there too.

そういえば今日から2/28、下北沢シェルター「スゴイ・インディードvol.2」のチケット発売開始です。久々の２マン、対バン形式のライブですぞ！しかも対バン相手はあの!!　ああ、まだ言えない。でも期待裏切らない事必死。今のうちにチケット押さえておいてね！

The presales for our headlining show in Feb, "Sugoi Indeed vol.2" at Shimokitazawa, Shelter started on Sunday, we have a great guest band for it...I can't say who it is just yet, I will let you know next week. Don't miss it !

Over 40 Dream Chasers

==

It is after 9 pm on new year's eve, the venue in Shibuya is not quite full but a big rock n roll noise is blowing away the dull atmosphere.

The band on stage is ELECTRIC EEL SHOCK a 3 piece Hard Rock band in which all the guys are over 40.

Aki, the vocalist and guitarist was wide eyed & shouting. Gian, the drummer was beating the drums  almost naked. Kazuto raised his bass and showed his tongue. People were getting excited, shaking their hair and dancing..

They believe it is very dangerous to rely on anyone or anything in the music business but they trust their own music saying “we will be on the 1000+ capacity stage with in 2 to 3 years"

==

"You are not tight enough "  said Gian’s drum teacher Hiro Tsunoda when he took his examination at drum school in Shinjuku in the summer of 1997.

At 29, he was the oldest  student in his school…and the worst. He was disappointed by his tutor’s comments but then he saw the light "I am in EES! Wild Rock, forget about playing tight, that's the way I live ". He quit school the following week. He had joined EES two years before after leaving a jazz funk band.

Aki and Kazuto came from Osaka.  Their first band ‘Bonnie Duck’  were signed to a major label in 1992. (Last year I found a BD cd on a Korean e-bay page…it’s great, sounds like a cross between Lalo Schiffren & Sesame St!!...Dan). They shared a stage with  "Mr.Children"  during this time and also "Sha-ran-Q" was an old friend. (both bands are famous in Japan - Kazuto) Bonnie Duck broke up after 2 years.

At this point the three guys joined up to form EES.

==

Their self-released first cd came out in 1998 but no one really noticed & they couldn’t get a good reaction anywhere so in 1999 they made their first appearance in New York. They got a much better response from the American audience who all wanted to congratulate them after the show.

At this point they moved their base to America. They worked to make money as a dental technician (Gian), a flyer designer (Kazuto) and a stage carpenter (Aki) and they bought an old van. They then set off all over the US with their van & equipment.

They made their living by selling CDs and T-shirts and stayed in people’s  houses or sometimes slept in the van in sleeping bags. A year later they did the same thing in Europe.

==

They were in NYC on September 11th 2001. Aki got a wake up call from Gian "planes just hit the World Trade Centre”. He could see the attack from his window.  4 days later they played in a secondhand shop in Manhattan. After the show one lady told them that her friend was still missing in the WTC but that their show had cheered her up.

They have always been helped by their audience. None of them are parents but their families are sometimes embarrassed because they are over 40. They need other jobs to survive but they are confident in their abilities due their experience of playing over 1000 shows in 28 different countries.

 Kazuto said "We will keep going & we will make it next year or the one after." and Aki and Gian agreed.
"They never regret if they will fail and die like stray dog."

by Shinsaku Mano

 

To be honest I thought that Bonnie Duck was kind of like Eel Shock’s idiot deformed child that they kept in the basement & about whom we were all sworn to secrecy but since Kazuto has let the cat out of the bag I thought you might like to see these…check out the bling on Maekawa san!!

さて、昨日もちらっと書きましたが、毎日新聞にイールショックが載りました！（少々出遅れた感あり）

EES got some coverage in a big Japanese newspaper. It was a big article that was nice but the text was not so good, it was too negative and they felt that it exaggerated their true story.

ただし、名古屋から東、北海道まで。大阪から以西の版では震災復興の記事が始まったため、載っておりません。事前に原稿を見せてもらってもなかったのでどきどきしながら拝読。お、でかい。いきなりTV欄の裏側で紙面の半Pに相当するぐらい。まあ、この時点でOKですわな。記事の内容は。。。うーん、ここでも感想は、「あ、世間てこういう感じなんだ。」ですかな。いや、まず「不惑」でやられましたw「惑わず」と書いて不惑。めっちゃ迷走しとるちゅうねん。

Kazuto says that he understands that big papers & TV programmes are way outside their normal (underground) territory & people who use those media want big stories but he would prefer funny stories rather than sad ones. (This bit was a bit difficult for me to understand…I’m guessing that the paper is kind of showing EES as a Japanese Anvil!...I could be wrong…ed).

何せ、普段下北沢や大阪のライブハウス界隈に生息してるもんで、もうそのギャップたるや。NHKと毎日新聞という日本が誇る２大メジャー、巨大帝国軍の汎用人型決戦兵器のコクピットに座らされてるようなもんです。42歳にしていきなり呼び出された生き別れの父親から「乗らないなら帰れ！」って言われたような。僕、のります！(具体的に紙面に。マイブーム、いやAxSxEブームの飛び火）

まあ、しかも家で一人でこの記事読んでたらそれほどでもなかったと思いますが、ただでさえ浮き足立ってるNHKホールの楽屋で、メンバー、スタッフ共々が一緒にいたもんだが過剰反応ですわ。（一同大爆笑）うなずくって！（笑いすぎて息ができなくなる）ポンと肩を叩かれたって！（むせる）

記者さんからは、何度か書き直しを命ぜられたらしいと聞いていました。やはり記者さん個人の意見というよりは、世相も併せて今の時代で僕らがやっていることっていうのは、こういう見方をされてるんだということを再確認した感じですかね。まあ、そんな悲壮な覚悟でやってるわけではございませんが、がんばってることを評価されたのは単純に嬉しいし、やはりそれだけ大きな記事にしてもらえたのは非常にありがたいと思っています。感謝してるし、僕らは決して文句を言っているわけではありませぬ。ただ物乞いしてる訳ではないので、期限が切れたお歳暮の残りとかを送ってこないように。うそ、ください。いや、やっぱりいいです。今お腹いっぱいやから。

They want to make it clear that they don’t want to blame the reporter, he has been to see EES many times, even travelled to Osaka once and it is great that he is trying to introduce them to the mainstream. They really appreciate that.

しかも始めてからあんまピンと来ていなかったtwitterで感想を聞いたところ、かなりの人がちゃんと感想をトウィートっつうの？？してくれました。どうもありがとうございます！皆一様に肯定的でホッとしました。そらそうやね、とりあえず載ったってことで皆びっくりするわな。ありえん。否、あり得るか。あり得たわな。還暦をむかえるころまでもし生きていたら、近所の子供に自慢するつもりです。「おっちゃん昔ロックバンドやっててな、NHKも出たし、新聞も載ったことあんねん」と。実害のない名物おじさんとして名を馳せる事必至。カンラカンラ。
悲観してないのは伝わりましたかな。売れたいけどそれ以上にわしらは楽しい事をし続けたいんじゃー。じゃー。


しかも相乗効果か、長年の友達共がこぞって見つけてくれてフォローされまくり。twitterちょっと面白くなってきた。でもこれ、忙しい人は無理だよねえ。そんな忙しい人っていないのか。これ読んだtwitterやってる人、僕を見つけてささやいてください。耳元で。あえて名前は言わない。

Finally, Kazuto has a Twitter page (KazutoEES I think…I’m sure Kazuto will put a link in!) for a while but has not used it much yet. He has had many positive Tweets…thanks for that! Please contact him on Twitter & let him know what you think of Twitter generally and of course EES…he is only just getting used to it!!